Why are rates increasing so much in Kent?

[IndoorLiving]

Is there any reason? Or anyone have any theories? We are in a neighbouring area and trying to work out if we need to be worried. Thanks

@coconutgrove we have also found early years provision to be pretty shocking to be honest, so it's not uncommon to have a couple of preschool children in a family be at 2 or 3 different providers during the week because there just aren't the spaces to have 2 children in 1 nursery all week, so they might do some nursery, some childminder and some extended family care.

We got it through secondary school in East Kent where kids travel from Canterbury/Thanet/Dover

Once in schools, it spreads!

@mocha78

Medway/Maidstone area here. I feel we got off lightly in the first wave, surprising at the time considering how many commuters into London from these areas. I think alot of people started working from home early in March which maybe helped. My daughter’s primary school had no cases until this week and now 5 classes are closed due to positive cases. I’m really hoping we’ve reached the peak now and will be on a downwards trend from now on.

Folkestone here. We did not get off lightly in the first wave, we had the second worst per capita death rate in the country going into autumn. But that hasn’t stopped numbers rising again. The ward next to mine has a rolling rate of 400 and ours is 350ish.

Just like the first lockdown, cases started to rise here only well into the second lockdown which basically has to be a reflection of low rule adherence.

I live in Swale. The percentage of people who had it from prisons and care homes totalled 15% last week. The rest is community transmission. People do seem to be following the rules, mask wearing etc.
2 family members who I don’t live with have recently had it. One is at secondary school the other teaches in a secondary school. There are also a lot of school buses where children from different schools are all crammed in.
We had very low rates in the first lockdown.

I'm not sure why it got so out of hand in North Kent, I've never been there and no experience of the place. But a big problem now is that the main nearby hospital is frequently unable to accept any more covid patients due to capacity and so they are being diverted to other hospitals which are in areas with relatively low rates. Then of course there is inevitable inter-patient spread and spread to staff who then go back and spread it in their home towns. That's my theory as to why rates all over Kent are now creeping up.

We have built too many houses in Kent and have not expanded the NHS to accommodate this huge increase in population. Our hospitals are over crowded because they are too small for the area they cover.

@Walkaround

Prisons are not anywhere near the whole answer - unless there are a hell of a lot of prisoners escaping.

The staff going in and out of the prisons. 150,000 population in Swale and three prisons. A lot of people have family connections to the prisons via the staff. Staff travelling on buses. 100s of school kids transported by buses off Sheppey.

I'm in a Kent village, we have rising cases. Schools are in but doing very well. My neighbour has had 3 visitors today, she's not a single mum but even then she should only have 1 visitor. Where I am I get the feeling is doesn't affect people like it might in other areas so they don't follow the rules as they should. Kids are bussed into our high school but they are all in, a few cases over the last few months but generally all good. Who knows why it's rising, I'm just waiting my turn!!

@Coffeeandcocopops - you mean families with “connections” have been breaking the rules on mixing during lockdown? And that prison workers are responsible for the high numbers in all of Thanet, Swale and Medway?

@Coffeeandcocopops

We have built too many houses in Kent and have not expanded the NHS to accommodate this huge increase in population. Our hospitals are over crowded because they are too small for the area they cover.

Medway is literally tiny and serves a huge area. When I grew up there, you had All Saints in Luton/Chatham off the Magpie Hall Road which has been a housing estate for at least 2 decades now, there was the maternity hospital Canada House in Gillingham near Robert Napier school, you also had St Bart's in Rochester that was massive. Then of course like many other areas, they shut them all down and moved everything to Medway but the land that sits on is tiny so they couldn't really increase the size of the hospital and its ancient which doesn't help at all. No forward thinking happened in the 70s, 80s or 90s that an ever growing, aging into the 80s or beyond, higher birth rate and immigration meant they needed those hospitals, GPs, schools and other amenities desperately, which also contributes to the overall decline.

Bear in mind that one of the prisons on Sheppey is open, and some prisoners work in the community. There are 3 prisons in the complex, with massive numbers of staff.

Low area in Kent but cases increasing and i can see where - schools. My household alone covers 4 secondaries and a primary and I’m sure many other households it’s similar. There was just one or two cases before half term in the schools, and within 3 weeks I have been receiving daily emails about new cases.
We’ve just been a bit delayed compared to the rest of the country but it was bound to happen eventually